The rare stoner rock band that doesn't sound like a bad imitation of
Zuma-era
Neil Young & Crazy Horse,
Black NASA distill their sound on their aptly-named second album. Finding a fruitful middle ground between the pop-smarts of
Queens of the Stone Age or
Foo Fighters and the boogie-fried jamming of the likes of
Fu Manchu, singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist
Chris Kosnik is at his best on songs like "Colony," which marries a catchy verse melody to some open-ended guitar freakouts, as opposed to more aimless, solo-based stomps like "Hut Nut," but the album's only real misstep is a pointless one-minute iteration of
Run-D.M.C.'s "You Be Illin'" that closes the record, detracting from the hard rock intensity and shout-along chorus of the album's proper closer, "New World." A few more songs like that monster and
Black NASA could catapult to the top of the stoner rock class.